Dr Williams was given the Bardic name of ap Aneuri, which he chose partly after a sixth century Welsh poet and partly after Aneurin Bevan, one of his personal heroes and the architect of the National Health Service.

Jennie Lee, who married Aneurin Bevan in 1934 and later was appointed first Minister for the Arts, wrote to a Miss Margaret Goalby in 1950: 'In the first year of the Spanish Civil War I was sitting with friends in a hotel in Barcelona when a tall thin man with a ravished complexion came over to the table.

Though his unpalatable opinions restricted his access to mainstream publications -- most of his commentaries were written for Tribune, an influential but small-circulation weekly newspaper backed by the Labour Party's star heavy weight, Aneurin Bevan -- Orwell went on insisting that the Soviet regime was a tyranny, even as the Red Army battled the Panzers to a standstill on the outskirts of Moscow.

Aneurin Bevan talked about society becoming more serene and spiritually healthier if it knows its citizens have at the back of their consciousness the knowledge that not only they themselves but all their fellows have access to the best that medical care can provide.